


Benzoylmethylecgonine

by astromancer



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, Gen, Grief, Guilt, Hospitalization, Hurt, Hurt Sherlock, Hurt/Comfort, Needles, Overdosing, Sherlock Holmes and Drug Use, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 15:14:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9447101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astromancer/pseuds/astromancer
Summary: In which Sherlock hits a new low, and Greg needs to be there when John can't.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was craving a little angst between Sherlock and Lestrade on the subject of drug abuse. So I wrote some. Enjoy :)
> 
> Edit: Is it bad that I can't remember if Greg helping Sherlock through addiction in his younger years was canon or headcanon? Probably. Anyway, there's some background for you.

Five texts. Three calls.

Sherlock was never this slow.

It took the final ring of his third attempt at calling the detective to stop Lestrade from switching out of the case profile’s window and back into his dreadfully losing game of Solitaire.

Perhaps _he_ was the one who was slow.

The profile—a rather foreboding email, with identification and autopsy information of a female body and a total of three missing children at stake—was exactly the kind of case Sherlock would jump on. Hell, with the shit that’d been going on lately, Sherlock would probably jump on anything. A dead cat. A fly on the wall. ‘A distraction’, as it were. God knows he needed those. An addiction of the mind.

Like a game of Solitaire.

He’d sent a text to John, but with the two partners in crime divorced from their living quarters, John had very little input into Sherlock’s well-being nowadays.

The doctor's reply was short and brisk. All business. Very unlike John. But Greg didn’t prod further. He’d have to be an ass to do that.

The poor man just lost his wife.

Greg downed the dredgy bottoms of his coffee cup, a sickly sludge of sugar and chunks of unmixed powder that lacked the caffeine necessary to keep the evening alive, before slipping on his coat and heading out.

“Going to make sure he’s not dead?” Anderson quipped as Lestrade passed by his desk. Lestrade frowned at the words.

“Someone has to.”

He resisted the gravity of Anderson’s comment and kept walking. Mycroft pinged in his pocket. He ignored it.

 

* * *

 

The evening was calm and quiet, a sharp juxtaposition to his tumultuous brain, filled with all the idiotic, unnecessary things Sherlock’s own mind would surely cringe at.

The clever pun on a business sign that admittedly took Greg a second too long to get.

A stray dog, fur primped and pampered, looking like it absolutely did not belong out on the streets.

Worry.

Greg didn’t linger too long on that one.

Sherlock was probably busy.

_With what?_

The only case he’s had access to in quite a while was the one currently sitting pretty on Greg’s desktop.

There must be something else.

Please be something else.

The ride to Baker Street suddenly felt like ages, and when he pulled up in front of the flat he could have sworn the moon hadn’t been out when he’d left the Yard. He shoved the key in the door. The _clack_ of the door unlocking was loud in his ears, as was the _bang_ of the door against the wall as he entered.

“Sherlock,” he called out. 221B answered with silence. No stirring from 221C, either. Mrs. Hudson was probably out. Or sleeping.

“ _Sherlock_ ,” he called again, boots plodding hard on the wood of the stairs. No answer. Sherlock was probably out. Or sleeping.

He rapped his knuckles on the door. The door answered with a creak, pushing open at the contact, revealing the man in question. Half of Sherlock was on the couch. The other half was messily sprawled upon the floor. His phone lay on the floor; long, lanky, pale fingertips resting soft against it.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Greg started, leaning against the doorway, all at once feeling stupid for coming here. Sherlock was fine. He was just…

Not sleeping.

A groan came from Sherlock's lips, low and dry and keening.

He wasn’t sleeping.

Greg’s mind jogged back up to a start. He approached Sherlock’s limp body cautiously, eyes darting around the living room for warning signs. Something. Anything.

_You look, but you don’t see…_

“Sherlock,” Greg said again, ignoring the scene in favour of aiding his friend, moving against the sludge he felt he was crawling through and over to Sherlock’s body, where he dropped to his knees. He pulled the other man up and into him, feeling more than hearing the coughs and wheezes racking through him.

Sherlock's skin was cold, caked in a heavy sweat that tamped his dark curls down onto his forehead and drenched the silk of his shirt, making it slippery and awful. Greg could feel Sherlock's heartbeat against him, fast and erratic and dreadfully pounding, as if it were going to pop right out of his chest.

Sherlock’s entire body shook terribly, most noticeable in the chattering of his teeth and the tremor-laden hand that fisted itself in the DI’s shirt at the same time that he spoke one word.

Just one. But it was more than enough.

“John.”

Greg felt a heave in his own chest, a twist of sympathy in his gut. Greg finally found words.

“John’s not here, Sherlock. It’s me. It’s Gre—Lestrade,” he corrected, recalling that the bastard couldn’t even muster up the decency to remember his bloody name.

There was a moment of silence, and for that moment, Greg thought Sherlock was gone. But the detective’s reply came quiet, low in his throat and caught in the chatter of teeth… and it sure sounded a lot like “piss off”.

Greg frowned hard, pulling Sherlock up on his chest to look him in the eye. What he saw was dull and devoid of colour, blue now a glossy grey. Lestrade knew that look all too well. And now he knew what to look for.

There. A needle. Nearly tucked under the couch from a fall from Sherlock’s shaking, drug-addled hands. His frown deepened, creasing his face, aging him.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Greg started, a high burn in his ears. Sherlock wheezed. “Don’t you fucking dare tell me to ‘piss off’, you hear me? Not after _this_ ,” he gestured to all of Sherlock. Sherlock dropped his gaze. “You promised me.”

“I don’t r—“

“ _Bullshit_. That’s bullshit, Sherlock, and you know it. You _promised me_. You know there are other people that care about you, too, yeah? People that care if you live or die? Or do you not remember that, either? Must be convenient. _Deleting_ things.”

A strangled sound, deep in Sherlock’s throat. A whole-body tremor. Another bead of sweat dripping down his face.

“I’m calling an ambulance,” Lestrade said. It sounded like a threat. He hoped it wouldn’t have to be.

The urgency of the situation hit him a bit late.

He was slow.

John would have been quicker.

“Don’t—“ Sherlock said, breathy and tepid, as Lestrade dialed.

“Not going to work on me.”

Another gasp, another knock of teeth against one another, and then, “Don’t want to die.”

Lestrade paused.

He had a million different responses, but none came. A voice sounded at the speaker. He answered her questions autonomously, but his mind was reeling on Sherlock.

Sherlock, who looked like death.

“You’re not going to die,” Lestrade said when the phone finally went quiet, pulling him closer, ignoring the dampness that clung to Sherlock’s body and chilled his skin to goosebumps. “Not on my watch.”

 

* * *

 

Mycroft appeared in the doorway, all at once solemn and compelled with grief. How the older Holmes could maintain his composure and look like he was breaking all at once, Greg would never understand.

Mycroft clicked the door shut behind him. The faint beep of a monitor sounded through the cracks.

“How is he?” Greg asked from his spot in the bleach-white hallway, leaned up against the wall, hands folded over his chest. A façade of stoicism, but inside he was raw.

“Alive,” Mycroft answered. “For now, that’s more than enough.”

A silence built between them. It was stifling.

Mycroft was the one to break it. “It’s not your fault, you know.”

Greg sighed. It felt like his lungs were pushing bricks. “I know.” A beat. “‘s not his fault, either.”

Mycroft looked wistful.

“The faith you keep in him is astounding. Do keep it up. God knows he needs it.”

“And John?”

“Both. But of course you knew that.”

“Right.”

Another beat.

“You can go in, you know.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Afraid to see him like that again?”

“Afraid I might put him in a coma.”

A laugh. Soft. Subtle. Nice. He’d like to hear it again, Greg decided.

“Not to worry. I’m sure you’ll restrain yourself just fine. Not that I’m stopping you,” Mycroft added as an afterthought.

“Any word from John?”

“No. And no word _about_ John, either. Not if you’re planning on going in there.”

Greg glanced back to the door—the only thing separating him from a man that nearly destroyed himself. A man that nearly destroyed everyone around him. _Don’t want to die._ Regret? Guilt? Desperation? All of the above?

At least Sherlock was safe and alive. Greg would accept that, first. He couldn’t compel himself to move. Couldn’t compel himself to face Sherlock in this state again. Not now. Not when Mycroft had assured him his brother’s life.

Perhaps he was slow.

But he was still quicker than he thought.


End file.
